Communicating through physical vibration

ABSTRACT

A data receiver includes a vibration sensor to sample data from vibrations in an incoming signal at a predetermined sampling rate, and a microcontroller, coupled to the vibration sensor, to control the sampling rate through an inter-integrated circuit (I2C) protocol or the like. A memory card, coupled to the microcontroller, stores the data with a serial peripheral interface (SPI) protocol or the like.

REFERENCE TO EARLIER FILED APPLICATION

This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/920,079, filed Oct. 22, 2015, which claims priority to U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 62/067,176, filed Oct. 22, 2014, bothof which are incorporated herein, in their entirety, by this reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to communicating through physicalvibration.

BACKGROUND

Various near field communication technologies exist today, some of whichemploy radio frequency (RF) modalities, including near fieldcommunication (NFC), infrared, Bluetooth® of Bluetooth Sig, Inc. andWiFi® of the WiFi® Alliance. These technologies, however, are known tosuffer from security concerns in being susceptible to interception outof the air if within signal range.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more particular description of the disclosure briefly described abovewill be rendered by reference to the appended drawings. Understandingthat these drawings only provide information concerning typicalembodiments and are not therefore to be considered limiting of itsscope, the disclosure will be described and explained with additionalspecificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1A is a diagram of an example eccentric rotating mass (ERM) motoraccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 1B is a diagram of an example linear resonant actuator (LRA) motoraccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is an example pulse width modulated (PWM) approximation of a sinewave.

FIG. 3 includes a picture and diagram of an example accelerometer chipaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of an example data transmitter according to oneembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a diagram of an example data receiver according to oneembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6A is a graph of an example vibration sensor output of accelerationversus time.

FIG. 6B is a graph of an example vibration sensor output of frequencywhen a vibration motor is fed with a 250 Hz sine wave.

FIG. 7 is a graph of an example vibration motor's frequency responsewith a resonant frequency at around 231 Hz.

FIG. 8 is a graph of an example vibration motor's frequency responsewhen driven at a resonance frequency.

FIG. 9A is a graph of an example frequency spectrum of a signal receivedby a vibration sensor from a vibration motor.

FIG. 9B is a graph of an example frequency spectrum of the signal ofFIG. 9A after filtering by a raised cosine filter.

FIG. 10 is a set of graphs of an example series of orthogonal vibrationsin Y and Z axes as received by a vibration sensor, and elimination ofcross-axis interference.

FIG. 11 is picture of an example cantilever-based receiver for vibrationamplification according to one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 12 is a graph of exemplary vibration as measured highest at aspecific phone location on the cantilever beam shown in FIG. 11.

FIG. 13A is a graph of an example vibratory pulse of a smartphone, whena vibration motor is activated from 20 ms to 50 ms, showing a ringingeffect.

FIG. 13B is a graph of the example vibratory pulse of FIG. 13A, showingreduced ringing from use of a braking voltage.

FIG. 14 is a graph of an example change of vibration amplitude as apercentage of maximum input voltage.

FIG. 15 is a graph of an example sound of vibration (SoV) wave andapplication of an anti-noise signal to at least partially cancel theSoV.

FIG. 16A is a graph of an example bit error rate (BER) as a function ofan input signal peak-to-peal voltage to a vibration motor.

FIG. 16B is a graph of an example per-carrier BER across 10 carrierfrequencies.

FIG. 16C is a graph of an example BER as a function of a number ofcarriers used where a bit rate in each barrier is 20 bits/second.

FIG. 17 is a graph of an example BER versus number of carriers, zoomedin up to four carriers.

FIG. 18 is a graph showing that the BER per-carrier does not degradeafter a vibration motor is run for long durations.

FIG. 19A is a graph of an example BER per carrier for paralleltransmissions on orthogonal dimension of the Y-axis.

FIG. 19B is a graph of an example BER per carrier for paralleltransmissions on orthogonal dimension of the Z-axis.

FIG. 20 is a graph of an example cumulative distribution function (CDF)of estimated symbol level error as a fraction of a mean inter-symboldifference.

FIG. 21A is a graph of an example heat map that shows a confusion matrixof transmitted and received symbols.

FIG. 21B is a graph of an example BER according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure when compared to a basic BER and an ideal BER.

FIG. 21C is a graph of a per-symbol BER with a 16-way array.

FIG. 22 is a graph of an example BER with a hand-held phone.

FIG. 23A is a graph of an example sound profile for an acoustic sidechannel leakage on glass.

FIG. 23B is a graph of an example sound profile for an acoustic sidechannel leakage on metal.

FIG. 23C is a graph of an example sound profile for an acoustic sidechannel leakage on another phone.

FIG. 23D is a graph of an example sound profile for an acoustic sidechannel leakage on wood.

FIG. 24 is a graph of an example ratio of residual to original signalpower (in dB) at increasing distances from a source.

FIG. 25 is a flow chart of an exemplary method for modeling and usinganti-noise to cancel out sound of vibration according to an embodimentof the present disclosure.

FIG. 26 is a computing system that may be used for executing ripplecancellation and jamming according the embodiments disclosed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

By way of introduction, the present disclosure relates to communicatingthrough vibration between, for example, two electronic devices. In oneembodiment, a data transmitter includes a vibration motor and a switchto regulate voltage from a direct-current (DC) power supply to thevibration motor. A microcontroller generates a pulse width modulation(PWM) signal with which to drive the switch and regulate the voltage tothe vibration motor in a sinusoidal manner, to generate data as symbolsfrom vibrations that form a series of bits from the vibration motor.

In one embodiment, a data receiver includes a vibration sensor thatsamples data from vibrations in an incoming signal at a predeterminedsampling rate. The incoming signal may be received from direct physicalcontact with a data transmitter or through physical contact with aphysical channel (such as a table top) with which the data transmitteralso has physical contact. A microcontroller, coupled to the vibrationsensor, controls the sampling rate through an inter-integrated circuit(I2C) protocol. A memory card, coupled to the microcontroller, storesthe data with a serial peripheral interface (SPI) protocol. By using avibration motor to transmit data through symbols and a vibration sensor(such as an accelerometer or a gyroscope) to capture the transmitteddata, security can be greatly enhanced.

In another embodiment, a data transmitter includes a vibration motor anda switch to regulate voltage from a DC power supply to the vibrationmotor. A microcontroller generates a PWM signal with which to drive theswitch and regulate the voltage to the vibration motor in a sinusoidalmanner, to generate data as symbols from vibrations that form a seriesof bits from the vibration motor. The symbols cause the vibration motorto emanate a sound of vibration (SoV) that includes data leakage, andwherein the microcontroller is further to generate an anti-noise signalto at least partially cancel the SoV when the SoV emanates. A microphonedetects the SoVs and a speaker outputs the anti-noise signal.

Data communication has been studied over a wide range of modalities,including radio frequency (RF), acoustic, visible light, and the like.The present application envisions vibration as a new mode ofcommunication. We explore the using vibration motors present in all cellphones today as a transmitter, while accelerometers, also popular inmobile devices, as a receiver. By carefully regulating the vibrations atthe transmitter, and sensing them through accelerometers, two mobiledevices may communicate via physical touch or through vibrations througha physical media.

The benefits of using vibration motors and accelerometers in mobilephones as an opportunity to exchange information includes security andzero-configuration, meaning that the two devices need not discover eachother's addresses to communicate. The act of physical contact serves asthe implicit address. However, some have identified the drawbacks ofsuch a system to be low bit rates (about 5 bits/s), based on the“Morse-code” style of ON/OFF communication with vibrations. Still,researchers conceived creative applications, including secure smartphonepairing and keyless access control.

The present disclosure is aimed at improving the data rates of vibratorycommunication, as well as its security features. A system disclosedherein breaks away from the intuitive Morse-code style ON/OFF pulses andengages techniques such as orthogonal multi-carrier modulation, graycoding, adaptive calibration, vibration braking, side-channelsuppression, and the like. Unique challenges (and opportunities) emergefrom the vibration motor and vibration sensor platform, as well as fromsolid-materials on which they rest. For example, the motor and thematerials exhibit resonant frequencies that need to be adaptivelysuppressed. Vibration sensors such as accelerometers or gyroscopes sensevibration along three orthogonal axes, offering the opportunity to usethem as parallel channels, with some degree of leakage. In addition tosuch techniques, the inventors have also designed a receiver cradle, ora wooden cantilever structure, that amplifies or dampens the vibrationsin a desired way. A vibration-based product in the future, say apoint-of-sale equipment for credit card transactions, may benefit fromsuch a design.

From a security perspective, the present system recognizes the threat ofacoustic leakage due to vibration, e.g., an eavesdropper listening tothe sound of vibration and decoding the transmitted bits. To thwart suchside channel attacks, the present design adapts the receiver to detectthe sounds and adaptively generate a synchronized acoustic signal thatcancels the sound. The receiver may also superimpose a jamming sequence,ultimately offering an information-theoretic protection from acousticeavesdroppers. We observe that application layer securities may notapply in all such scenarios. For example, public and symmetric key-basedencryption infrastructure may not scale to billions of phones and otheruse-cases such as internet of things (IoT). Blocking access to thesignal, at the physical layer itself, is desirable in these spontaneous,peer-to-peer, and perhaps disconnected, situations.

It is natural to wonder what kind of applications will use vibratorycommunication, especially in light of NFC. Bringing the vibratory bitrates to a respectable level—say credit card transactions in asecond—may trigger many new use-cases. In particular, strictsecurity-sensitive applications, or applications in the developingworld, may be candidates. This is because vibration may be inherentlymore secure than RF broadcast in NFC or Bluetooth®. Despite the veryshort communication range in NFC, recent results confirm that securitythreats are real. Some have decoded NFC transmissions from one meteraway and conjecture that high-gain beamforming antennas can furtherincrease the separation. The level of security has been increased withthe disclosed acoustic cancellation and jamming.

Moreover, the ubiquity of vibration motors in every cell phone, even indeveloping regions, presents an immediate market for vibratorycommunication. Peer-to-peer money exchange with recorded logs is aglobal problem, recently recognized by the Gates Foundation, and hiddencamera attacks on Automated Teller Machine (ATM) kiosks have beenrampant in many parts of India and south Asia. Paying local cab driverswith phone vibrations, or using phones as ATM cards can perhaps be ofinterest in developing countries. Finally, if link capacity proves to bethe only bottleneck, perhaps improved vibration motors can be includedto mitigate the bottleneck in the next phone models.

The inventors, therefore, have harnessed the vibration motor hardwareand its functionalities, from a communications perspective. Theinventors have developed an orthogonal multi-carrier communication stackusing vibration motor and accelerometer chips, and repeat the same forSamsung smart-phones. Design decisions for the latter are different dueto software and application programming interface (API) limitations onsmartphones, where vibration motors are mainly integrated for simplealerts and notifications. The inventors further have identified acousticside channel attacks and, using signal cancellation and jamming, offerphysical layer protection to eavesdropping.

Vibration Motor

A vibration motor (also called “vibra-motor”) is an electro-mechanicaldevice that moves a metallic mass around a neutral position to generatevibrations. The motion is typically periodic and causes the center ofmass (CoM) of the system to shift rhythmically. There are mainly twotypes of vibra-motors depending on their working principle:

Eccentric Rotating Mass (ERM):

This type of vibration generators use a direct current (DC) motor torotate an eccentric mass around an axis as depicted in FIG. 1A. As themass is not symmetric with respect to its axis of rotation, the masscauses the device to vibrate during the motion. Both the amplitude andfrequency of vibration depends on the rotational speed of the motor,which can in turn be controlled through an input DC voltage. Withincreasing input voltages, both amplitude and frequency increase almostlinearly and can be measured by an accelerometer.

Linear Resonant Actuators (LRA):

This type of vibration motors generate vibration by linear movement of amagnetic mass, shown in FIG. 1B, as opposed to rotation in ERM. WithLRA, the mass is attached to a permanent magnet which is suspended neara coil, called a “voice coil.” Upon applying alternating current (AC) tothe motor, the coil also behaves like a magnet due to the generatedelectromagnetic field and causes the mass to be attracted or repelled,depending on the direction of the current. This generates vibration atthe same frequency as the input AC signal, while the amplitude ofvibration is determined by the signal's peak-to-peak voltage.Accordingly, LRAs allow for regulating both the magnitude and frequencyof vibration separately. Fortunately, most mobile phones today useLRA-based vibra-motors.

Regulating Vibration

Ideally, a controller should be able to regulate the vibra-motor at finegranularities using any analog waveform. Unfortunately,micro-controllers produce digital voltage values limited to a fewdiscrete levels. A popular technique to approximate analog signals withbinary voltage levels is called Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). Thistechnique is useful to drive analog devices with digital data, withoutrequiring a digital-to-analog converter (DAC).

PWM-Based Motor Control:

The core idea in PWM is to approximate any given voltage V by rapidlygenerating square pulses and configuring the pulse's duty cycleappropriately. For example, to create a 1V signal with binary voltagelevels of 5V and 0V, the duty cycle needs to be 20%. Now, if the periodof the square pulse is made very small (i.e., high frequency), theeffective output voltage will appear as 1V. Towards this goal, the PWMfrequency is typically set much higher than the response time of thetarget device so that the device experiences a continuous averagevoltage. Importantly, it is also possible to generate varying voltageswith PWM, say a sine wave, by gradually changing the duty cycles in asinusoidal fashion as shown in FIG. 2.

Vibration Sensors (e.g., Accelerometer) and Inertial Sensors (e.g.,Gyroscope)

Different vibration sensors exist that can detect vibrations. One of themore popular vibration sensors found in many electronic devices is theaccelerometer, although inertial sensors such as gyroscopes may also beused to pick up on vibrations. In various embodiments, a vibrationsensor may be a gyroscope or may include both an accelerometer and agyroscope to detect vibrations. The accelerometer is a microelectro-mechanical (MEMS) device that measures acceleration caused bymotion. While the inner workings of accelerometers can vary, the coreworking principle pertains to a movable seismic mass that responds tothe vibration of the object to which the accelerometer is attached.Capacitive accelerometers such as shown in FIG. 3 are perhaps mostpopular in smartphones today. When vibrated, the seismic mass movesbetween fixed electrodes, causing differences in the capacitance c₁ andc₂, ultimately producing a voltage proportional to the experiencedvibration.

Sensing Acceleration

Modern accelerometers (and gyroscopes) sense the movement of the seismicmass along three orthogonal axes, and report them as a <X, Y, Z> tuple.The gravitational acceleration appears as a constant offset along theaxis pointed towards the floor. The newest accelerometer chips support awide range of adjustable sampling rates, typically from 100 mHz to 3.2KHz. For this disclose, we choose the ADXL345 capacitive MEMSaccelerometer, not only because it is used in most smartphones, but alsobecause of programmability and frequency range.

Vibratory Transmission and Reception

The present inventors have designed a custom hardware prototype usingthe same chips that smartphones use, and characterize and evaluate thesystem. Remember that communication via vibrations may be by way ofdirect physical contact or through contact with a physical channel ofcommunication, such as a physical object like a table, cantilever (FIG.11) or other physical object.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of an example data transmitter 400 according to oneembodiment of the present disclosure. The data transmitter 400 mayinclude a microcontroller board 402 having a microcontroller 404, amicrophone 410, a speaker 412, a first resister and an NPN transistor420 in Part A (a switch), a resister and a capacitor Part B (an RCcircuit), a fly-back diode 430 and an LRA vibration (or vibra-) motor440. The microcontroller 404 may include raised cosine filter(s) 406, amodulator 408 and other processing components. The data transmitter 400may include more or fewer than these components. The microcontrollerboard 402 may be an Arduino® board, such as an open source hardwaredevelopment platform equipped with a ATmega328 8-bit RISCmicrocontroller or other microcontroller 404.

The vibration frequency (and amplitude) may be finely controlled througha time-varying sequence of voltage levels fed to the vibra-motor 440.The microcontroller's output current fluctuates, leading to errors inthe transmitted vibratory signals. Therefore, we power the vibra-motor440 with a stand-alone 6V DC power supply and use the microcontrollersignal to operate a switch that regulates the voltage to the motor 440.The NPN transistor 420 may be an NPN Darlington transistor (TIP122) thatserves as a switch to control whether to drive the motor 440. Themicrocontroller signal from the microcontroller 404 may be connected toa base of the NPN transistor 420.

Assume regulation of the vibra-motor 440 in a sinusoidal fashion.Digital samples of the sine waveform may be pre-loaded into memory ofthe microcontroller 404, and PWM uses them to determine the width of thesquare waves. When the sine wave frequency is to be increased, the samedigital samples are drawn at a faster rate and at precise timings. Theswitch (Part A) uses the PWM output to regulate the 6V DC signal,resulting in a signal similar to FIG. 2. We mitigate a number ofengineering problems to run the set up correctly, including harmonicdistortions due to the square pulses, spikes due to back EMF, and thelike. The data transmitter 400 may move the PWM frequency to a high 32KHz and use an RC filter (Part B) to remove the distortions. The datatransmitter 400 may further use a fly-back diode 430 (such as a 1N4001fly-back diode) to smooth out the spikes.

The data transmitter 400 may perform amplitude modulation on 10different carrier signals uniformly spaced from 300 Hz to 800 Hz, whereeach carrier is modulated with a bandwidth of 40 Hz. Furthermore, thevibrations may also be parallelized on orthogonal motion dimensions (Xand Z) with appropriate signal cancellation, as will be discussed inmore detail.

FIG. 5 is a diagram of an example data receiver 500 according to oneembodiment of the present disclosure. The data receiver 500 may includea vibration sensor 502 (such as an accelerometer or gyroscope), amicrocontroller board 514 with a microcontroller 524 and a securedigital (SD) or other type of memory card 518. A common 3.3 volts maypower the vibration sensor 502, the microcontroller board 514 and the SDmemory card 518. The microcontroller 524 may include raised cosinefilter(s) 506 and a demodulator 508 among other components.

The vibration sensor 502 may detect vibrations and send detected signalsover a serial data (SDA) (or one bit) data bus, and a serial clock (SCL)to the microcontroller board 514 using a inter-integrated circuit (I2C)protocol or similar type of communication protocol. This data may thenbe stored in the SD memory card 518 by the microcontroller 524, usingthe displayed connections: clock (CLK); master out, slave in (MOSI);master in, slave out (MISO); and slave-select pin. The data may bestored to the SD memory card 518 using a serial peripheral interface(SPI) protocol connection or bus.

The data receiver 500 may be controlled through the microcontrollerboard 514 (which may, in one embodiment, be an Arduino® board) via theI2C protocol at 115200 baud rate, for example. In one embodiment, theaccelerometer's sampling rate may be set to 160011z and 10 bit outputresolution. While higher sampling rates are possible, we refrain fromdoing so as the microcontroller 524 records the vibration data at aslower rate. In particular, the microcontroller 524 produces a sampleeach 0.625 ms, but the microcontroller 524 takes around 8 to 12 ms toperiodically read and write to memory. This may be handled with afirst-in-first-out (FIFO) mode of the vibration sensor 502, such thatqueued up data is read in as a burst. We also mount an on-board SD cardto store data via the SPI protocol.

FIG. 6A is a graph of an example output of acceleration versus time forthe vibration sensor 502. This graph shows the vibration sensor outputwhen the vibra-motor 440 (of the data transmitter 400) is driven by thesinusoidal input and its output comes into contact the accelerometer.FIG. 6B is a graph of an example vibration sensor output of frequencywhen a vibration motor is fed with a 250 Hz sine wave.

Selecting the Carrier Signal

To reason about how data bits should be transmitted, we first carry outan analysis of the available spectrum. This available spectrum isactually bottlenecked by the maximum sampling rate of the vibrationsensor of the data receiver 500 because this rate is 1600 Hz, thehighest frequency the transmitter can use is naturally 800 Hz. Now, totest the system's frequency response in the [0,800] band, we perform a“sine sweep” test. The data transmitter 400, with the help of a waveformgenerator, may produce continuously increasing frequencies from 1 Hz to800 Hz with constant amplitude (the frequency increments are at 1 Hz).FIG. 7 shows the corresponding vibration magnitudes recorded by thevibration sensor. The response appears weak up to 60 Hz (called the“inert band”), followed by improvements up until around 200 Hz, andfollowed by a large spike at around 231 Hz. This spike is near theresonant frequency of the vibra-motor (confirmed in the data sheet).

Frequencies near the resonant band may serve as good carriers foramplitude-modulated data because of a larger vibration range. However,when we plot the frequency versus time spectrogram of the sine sweeptest (FIG. 8), we find that the vigorous vibration around the resonantfrequency spills energy in almost the entire spectrum. Therefore,transmitting on the resonant band can be effective for a single carriersystem, but the interference ruins the opportunity to transmit data inparallel carriers. In light of this, we define a “resonant band” of 100Hz around the peak, and move the carrier signals outside this band. Weselect 10 orthogonal carriers separated by 40 Hz from the non-resonantfrequencies between 300 Hz and 800 Hz. The 40 Hz separation ensures thenon-overlapping sidebands for the carriers, allowing reliable symbolrecovery with software demodulation.

Synchronization

Microcontrollers (such as microcontroller 404 and microcontroller 524)may inject timing errors at various stages: variable delay in fetchingdigital samples from memory, during time-stamping the received samples,and due to oscillator/crystal frequency shifts with temperature. Thetiming errors manifest as fluctuations in vibration frequency, causingerror in demodulation. To synchronize time between data transmission bythe data transmitter 400 and data reception by the data receiver 500,the data transmitter 400 may generate a pilot vibration frequency at 70Hz and transmit it in parallel to data bits. We choose 70 Hz to be abovethe inert band and lower than the resonant band. During reception, themicrocontroller 524 detects the pilot frequency, measures the offset insampling rate, and interpolates the received signal by adjusting forthis offset. This operation may also correct all other frequencies inthe spectrum needed for demodulation.

(De)Modulating the Carrier Signal

The carrier frequencies are modulated with Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)in light of bandwidth efficiency and simplicity in contrast to FrequencyShift Keying (FSK). The modulator 408 may modulate each of the 10carriers with binary data at a symbol rate of 20 Hz. To preventinter-carrier interference, the modulator 408 may shape the pulses withthe raised cosine filter 406 for each carrier individually; themodulated carriers are then combined and fed to the vibration motor 440to be transmitted. The data receiver 500 senses the energy in the pilotcarrier, calibrates and synchronizes appropriately to identify thebeginning of transmission. The microcontroller 524 again filters thereceived spectrum with a raised cosine filter 506 (which may be the sameraised cosine filter 406 used by the microcontroller 404 duringmodulation) to isolate each carrier. The demodulator 508 may thenproceed to demodulate individual carriers separately. FIGS. 9A and 9Bshow a part of the spectrum before and after filtering, for an examplecarrier frequency at 405 Hz. The demodulator 508 may perform thedemodulation with envelop detection and precise sampling at bitintervals. We will evaluate this custom-designed system below and show˜200 bits/second data rates through vibration.

Orthogonal Vibration Dimensions

The above schemes, although adapted for vibra-motors, are grounded inthe fundamentals of radio design. In an attempt to augment the bit rate,we observed that a unique property of accelerometers and gyroscopes isan ability to detect vibration on three orthogonal dimensions (X, Y, andZ). Although vibra-motors only produce signals on a single dimension,multiple vibra-motors may be used in parallel to produce vibrationsalong any or a combination of the X, Y and Z axes. As just one example,we have included an example in which the data transmitter includes twovibra-motors oriented in the Y and Z dimensions, respectively, andexecute the exact multi-carrier amplitude modulated transmissionsdiscussed above.

Measurements show that vibration from one dimension spills into theother. However, this spilled interference exhibits a 180° phase lag withrespect to the original signal, as well as an attenuation in theamplitude. FIG. 10 shows an example in which the Z-axis signal (solidblack) has a spill on the Y-axis, with a reversed phase and halvedamplitude. The vice versa also occurs. Now, to remove Z's spilledinterference and decode the Y signal, we scale the Y signal so that theinterference matches Z's actual amplitude, and then add it to the Zsignal. The Z signal is removed quite precisely, leaving an amplifiedversion of Y, which is then decoded through the envelope detector. Thereverse is performed with Z's signal, resulting in a double improvementin data rate, evaluated later.

Smartphone Design

The above-explained custom design was extended to application onexisting smartphones, such as, for example, Android™ smartphones.Android™ is of interest because Android™ offers APIs to a kernel levelPWM driver for controlling the ON/OFF timings. A user space module addedto the Android™ may leverage third-party kernel space APIs to controlthe vibration amplitudes as well. However, this use space module stillmay not match the custom set-up explained previously. The PWM driver inSamsung® smartphones is set to operate on the resonant band of the LRAvibra-motor 440, and the vibration frequency may not be changed. This isunderstandable from the manufacturer's viewpoint, since vibra-motors areembedded to serve as a 1-bit alert to the user. However, for datacommunication, the non-linear response at the resonant frequenciespresents challenges. Nonetheless, the present design may operate underthese constraints, but may be limited to a single carrier frequency,modulated via amplitude modulation.

Smartphone Tx and Custom Rx

One advantage of the resonant frequency is that it offers a largeramplitude range, permitting n-ary symbols as opposed to being binary(e.g., the amplitude range divided into n levels). To further amplifythis range, we add a custom smartphone cradle: a cantilever-based woodenbridge-like framework that, in contact with the phone, amplifiesspecific vibration frequencies. While we will evaluate performancewithout this cradle, we researched whether auxiliary objects bringbenefits to vibratory communication. FIG. 11 shows one such a design,which includes a cantilever of a certain length supported at one end andconnected to a vibration sensor on the other. When the transmitter phoneis placed on a specific location on the bridge, and a vibration sensorconnected to the other end, we indeed observe improved sign-to-noiseratio (SNR). By making the cantilever “channel” resonate along with thesmartphone, we saw improved transmission capacity. We elaborate on thecantilever-based design next, followed by the communication techniques.

Cantilever Based Receiver Setup

Observe that every object has a natural frequency at which it vibrates.If an object is struck by a rod, say, the rod will vibrate at itsnatural frequency no matter how hard it is struck. The magnitude of thestrike will increase the amplitude of vibration, but not its frequency.However, if a periodic force is applied at the same natural frequency ofthe object, the object exhibits amplified vibration: resonance. In ourset-up, we use a one-foot-long wooden beam supported at one end, calleda cantilever (FIG. 11). The smartphone transmitter placed near thesupported end of the cantilever impinges a periodic force on thecantilever, calculated precisely based on the cantilever's resonantfrequency (inversely proportional to the square root of its weight). Weadjust the weight of the cantilever so that its natural frequencymatches that of the phone's vibra-motor (which lies between 190 Hz to250 Hz). This creates the desired resonance.

The vibration sensor is attached at the unsupported end of thecantilever (to the right of the cantilever in FIG. 11). FIG. 12 plotsthe measured amplitude variation (on three axes of the vibration sensor)as the smartphone is placed on different positions along the cantilever.We choose the position located six inches from the supported end, as itinduces maximal amplification on all three axes of the vibration sensor.

Symbol Duration and the Ringing Effect

The microcontroller 404 communicates through amplitude modulation—pulsesof n-ary amplitudes (or symbols) are modulated on the carrier frequencyfor a symbol duration. Preferably, the effect of a vibration should becompletely limited within this symbol duration to avoid interferencewith the subsequent symbol (called inter-symbol interference). Inpractice, however, the vibration remains in the medium even after thedriver stops the vibrator, known as the ringing effect. This is anoutcome of inertia, where the vibra-motor mass continues oscillating orrotating for some period after the driving voltage is turned off. Untilthis extended vibration dampens down substantially, the next symbol mayget incorrectly demodulated (due to this heightened noise floor).Moreover, the free oscillation of the medium also contributes toringing. FIG. 13A shows a vibratory pulse of the smartphone, where thevibra-motor is activated from 20 to 50 ms. The vibration motor mayconsume 30 ms to overcome static inertia of the movable mass and reachits maximum vibration level. Once the voltage is turned off (at 50 ms)the vibration dampens slowly and consumes another 70 ms to becomenegligible. This dictates the symbol duration to be around 30+70=100 msto avoid inter-symbol interference.

Vibration Dampening

To push for greater capacity, we reduce the symbol duration by dampeningthe ringing vibration. The ringing duration is a function of theamplitude of the signal—a higher amplitude signal rings for a longerduration. If, however, the amplitude can be deliberately curbed, ringingmay still occur but will decay faster. Based on this observation, themicrocontroller 404 applies a small braking voltage to the vibra-motorright after the signal has been sampled by the demodulator (30 ms). Thisvoltage is deliberately small so that it does not manifest into largevibrations, and is applied for 10 ms. Once braking is turned off, themicrocontroller 404 allows another 10 ms for the tail of the ringing todie down, and then transmit the next symbol, as shown in FIG. 13B. Thus,the symbol duration is 50 ms now (half of the original) and there isstill some vibration when microcontroller 404 triggers the next symbol.While this adds slightly to the noise floor of the system, the benefitsof a shorter symbol duration out-weighs the losses. Moreover, anadvantage arises in energy consumption—triggering the vibra-motor from acold start requires higher power. As we see later, activating it duringthe vibration tail saves energy.

(De)Modulation

The (de)modulation technique is mostly similar to a single carrier ofthe custom hardware design. One difference is that the (de)modulationtechnique with a smartphone uses multiple levels of vibration amplitudes(up to 16), unlike the binary levels used in the custom design. FIG. 14shows how microcontroller 404 can vary the voltage levels (as apercentage of maximum input voltage) to achieve different vibrationamplitudes. If adequately stable, the amplitude at each voltage levelcan serve as separate symbols. Given the linear amplitude slope fromvoltage levels 15% to 90%, the microcontroller 404 may divide this rangeinto n-ary equispaced amplitude levels, each corresponding to a symbol.However, due to various placements and/or orientations of the phone,this slope can vary to some degree. While this does not affect up to8-ary communication, 16 symbols are susceptible to this because ofinadequate gaps between adjacent amplitude levels. To cope, themicrocontroller 404 may use a preamble of two symbols. At the beginningof each packet the data transmitter 400 may send two symbols with thehighest and lowest amplitudes (15 and 90). The receiver computes theslope from these two symbols, and calibrates all the other intermediateamplitude levels from these slopes. The data receiver 500 may thendecode the bits with a maximum likelihood based symbol detector.

Security

Vibrations from vibration motors produce sound and can leak informationabout the transmitted bits to an acoustic eavesdropper. This section isaimed at designing techniques that thwart such side channel attacks. Wedesign this as a real-time operation on the smartphone

Acoustic Side Channel

The source of noise that actually leaks information is the rattling ofthe loosely-attached parts of the vibration motor 440, e.g., theunbalanced mass and metals supporting the vibration motor. Ourexperiments show that this sound of vibration (SoV) exhibitscorrelations of ˜0.7 with the modulated frequency of the datatransmission. Although SoV decays quickly with distance, microphonearrays and other techniques can be employed to still extractinformation. The disclosed system and methods work to prevent suchattacks.

Canceling Sounds of Vibration (SoV)

One way to defend against eavesdropping is to jam the acoustic channelwith a pseudorandom noise (PN) sequence, thus decreasing the SNR of theSoV. Since this jamming signal will not interfere with physicalvibrations, it does not affect throughput. Upon implementation, werealized that the jamming signal was audible, and annoying to the ears.The more effective approach may be to cancel or suppress the SoV fromthe source, and then jam faintly, to camouflage the residue.

The microcontroller 404 may, though the vibration motor 440, produce an“anti-noise” signal that cancels out the SoV to ultimately createsilence. The data transmitter 400 should generate this anti-noise as itknows the exact bit sequence that is the source of the SoV. Thechallenge is in detecting the ambient sound in real time and producingthe precise negative (phase shifted) signals at all locations around thedata transmitter 400.

The data transmitter 400 may know the precise bit sequence that iscausing the SoV. This can help in modeling the sound waveform ahead intime, and be synchronized as close as possible to the SoV. The issue,however, is that the SoV varies based on the material medium on whichthe phone is placed; furthermore, the SoV needs to be cancelled at alllocations in the surrounding area. Further, the phase of the SoV remainsunpredictable as it depends on the starting position of the mass in thevibra-motor 440 and the delay to attain the full swing. Finally,Android™ offers little support for real-time audio processing, posing achallenge in developing SoV cancellation on off-the-shelf smartphones.

Ripple Cancel and Jam

The overall technique for cancellation and jamming is composed of threegeneral sub-tasks: anti-noise modeling, phase alignment, and jamming.

Anti-Noise Modeling

The goal is to model the analog SoV waveform corresponding to the databits that will be transmitted through vibration. Since the vibrationamplitude and frequency of the vibration motor 440 are known (e.g., thecarrier frequency), the first approximation of this model is relativelystraight forward. However, as mentioned earlier, the difficulty arisesin not knowing how the unknown material (on which the phone is placed)will impact the SoV. Apart from the fundamental vibration frequency, theprecise SoV signal depends also on the strength and count of theovertones produced by the material. To estimate this, the datatransmitter 400 first transmits a short preamble, listens to detect itsFast Fourier Transform (FFT) through the microphone 410, and picks thetop-K strongest overtones. These overtones are combined in the revisedsignal model. Finally, the actual data bits are modeled in the timedomain, reversed in sign, and added to create the final anti-noisesignal. The anti-noise signal is ready to be played on the speaker 412,except that the phase of anti-noise needs to match the SoV.

Phase Alignment with Frequency Switch

Unfortunately, Android™ introduces a variable latency of up to 10 ms todispatch the audio data to the hardware. This is excessive since a 2.5ms lag can cause constructive interference between the anti-noise andthe SoV. Fortunately, two observations help in this setting: (1) theaudio continues playing at the specified sample rate without anysignificant fluctuation, and (2) the sample rate of the active audiostream can be changed in real-time. The data transmitter 400 can nowcontrol the frequency of the online audio by changing the playbacksample rate.

We leverage this frequency control to make the microcontroller 404 matchthe phase of the anti-noise signal with the SoV. The microcontroller 404may start the anti-noise signal as close as possible to the SoV, butincrease the sampling frequency such that the fundamental frequency ofthe anti-noise signal increases by δf. When this anti-noise signalcombines in the air with the SoV, the anti-noise signal causes theamplitude of the sound to vary because of the small difference in thefundamental frequencies. The maximum suppression of the SoV occurs whenthe amplitude of this combined signal is at its minimum. The phasedifference between the SoV and the anti-noise signal is almost matchedat this point, which we can refer to as phase lock time. At exactly thisphase-lock time, microcontroller 404 may switch the fundamentalfrequency of the anti-noise signal to its original value (i.e., lower byδf). The microcontroller 404 recognizes this time instant by trackingthe envelope of the combined signal and switching frequencies at theminimum point on the envelope.

FIG. 15 illustrates the various steps leading up to the frequencyswitch, and the sharp drop in signal amplitude in response to theaddition of the anti-noise signal. The suppressed signal remains at thatlevel thereafter until the vibration motor 440 stops transmitting thatparticular symbol.

Jamming

The cancellation is not perfect because the timing of the operations arenot instantaneous; microphone and speaker noise also pollute theanti-noise waveforms, leaving a small residue. To prevent attacks onthis residue, the microcontroller 404 may superimpose a jamming signalwith the goal of camouflaging the sound residue. A PN sequence may beadded to the anti-noise waveform once it has phase-locked with thevibration sound. Unfortunately, Android™ does not allow loading a secondsignal on top of a signal that is already playing. Note that if we loadthe jamming signal upfront (along with the modeled anti-noise signal),the precise phase estimation fails. We develop an engineeringwork-around. When modeling the anti-noise waveform, the microcontroller404 may also add the jamming noise sequence, but pre-pad the latter witha few zeros. Thus, when the SoV and anti-noise signal combine, the zerosstill offer opportunities for detecting the time when the signalsprecisely cancel. The microcontroller 404 may phase-lock at these timesand the outcome is the residual signal from imperfect cancellation, plusthe jamming sequence. We will show in the evaluation how the SoV's SNRdegrades due to such cancellation and jamming, offering good protectionto eavesdropping. The tradeoff is that we need a longer preamble now forthis phase alignment process. However, this is only an issue arisingfrom current Android™ APIs.

System Evaluation

We evaluate the proposed data transmitter 400 and data receiver 500designs in three phases: the custom hard-ware, the smartphone prototype,and security.

Custom Hardware

Recall that the custom hardware is composed of the vibra-motor 440 and avibration sensor 502 such as an accelerometer (or gyroscope) chipcontrolled by the microcontroller 404 (which is located on, for example,an Arduino® board). We bring the data transmitter 400 and the datareceiver 500 into physical contact (which may include some medium onwhich they are placed) and initiate packet transmission of variouslengths (consuming between 1 second to 10 seconds). Each packet containspseudo-random binary bits at 20 Hz symbol rate on 10 parallel carriers.The bits are demodulated at the data receiver 500 and compared againstthe ground truth. We repeat the experiment for increasing signal energy(e.g., by varying the peak-to-peak signal voltage, V_(pp), from 1V to5V). FIG. 16A plots the bit error rate (BER) as a function ofpeak-to-peak input voltage (V_(pp)) to the vibra-motor 440 anddemonstrates how it diminishes with higher SNR. At the highest SNR, andaggregated over all carrier frequencies, the present design achieves the80th percentile BER of 0.017 translating to an average bit rate of 196.6bits/s.

Behavior of Carriers

In evaluating BERs across different carrier frequencies, we observe thatnot all carriers behave similarly. FIG. 16B illustrates that carrierfrequencies near the center of the spectrum perform consistently betterthan those near the edges. One of the reasons is aliasing noise.Ideally, the vibration sensor should low-pass-filter the signal beforesampling, to remove signal components higher than the Nyquist frequency.However, inexpensive vibration sensors do not employ anti-aliasingfilters, causing such undesirable effects. Carriers near the resonantband also experience higher noise due to the spilled-over energy.

Increasing the number of carriers enables greater parallelism (bitrate), at the expense of higher BER per carrier. To characterize thistradeoff, we transmit data on an increasing number of carriers, startingfrom the middle of our spectrum and activating carriers on both sides,one at a time. FIG. 16C illustrates BER variations with increasingnumber of carriers, for varying signal energy (peak-to-peak voltage,V_(pp)). As each carrier operates at fixed 20 Hz symbol rate, this alsoshows the bit rate versus BER characteristics of our system. FIG. 17zooms in on the BERs of the best four carriers.

Temporal Stability

Given that vibra-motors and vibration sensors are essentially mechanicalsystems, we intend to evaluate their properties when they are made tooperate continuously for long durations. Given the low bit rates, thismight be the case when relatively longer packets need to be transmitted.Towards this end, we continuously transmit data for 50 sessions of 300seconds each. FIG. 18 plots the per-carrier BER (computed in thegranularity of 10 second periods) of a randomly selected session. TheY-axis shows each of the carriers and the X-axis is time. The BERs varybetween 0.02 near the center to 0.2 near the edge. Overall results showno visible degradation in BER even after running for 300 seconds.

Exploiting Vibration Dimensions

Recall that the data transmitter 400 may use two vibra-motors inparallel to exploit the orthogonality of vibrations along the Y-axis andthe Z-axis of the vibration sensor, and theoretically could use threevibra-motors for all three axes. FIGS. 19A and 19B illustrate thedistribution of BER achieved across carrier frequencies on the Y-axisand the Z-axis, respectively. We also attempt to push the limits bymodulating greater than 20 bits/s; however, the BER begins to degrade.In light of this, the disclosed design achieves median capacity ofaround 400 bits/s (e.g., 20 bits/s per carrier×10 carriers×2dimensions). While the tail of the BER distribution still needsimprovement, we believe coding can be employed to mitigate some of it.

Calibration

Vibrations will vary across transactions due to phone orientation,humans holding it, different vibration medium, and other factors. Asdiscussed earlier, a demodulator may calibrate for these factors, butmay pay a penalty whenever the calibration is imperfect. We evaluateaccuracy of calibration using the error between the estimated amplitudefor a symbol, and the mean amplitude computed across all receivedsymbols. FIG. 20 plots the normalized error for various n-arymodulations—the normalization denominator is used as the differencebetween adjacent amplitudes.

BER with Smartphones

FIG. 21A plots the confusion matrix of transmitted and received (ordemodulated) symbols, for 16-ary modulation. While some errors occur, weobserve that they are often the symbol adjacent to the one transmitted.In light of this, the present system (referred to as Ripple) uses Graycodes to minimize such well-behaved errors. With these codes andcalibration, FIG. 21B illustrates the estimated BER for different bitrates, for each of the four modulation schemes. As comparison points,the “Basic” symbol detector uses predefined thresholds for each symboland maps the received sample to the nearest amplitude. The “Ideal”scheme identifies the bits using the knowledge of all received symbols.Ripple performs well even at higher bit rates, which is not the casewith Basic.

FIG. 21C illustrates the BER per symbol for 16-ary modulation, showingthat symbols corresponding to the high vibration amplitudes experiencehigher errors. The reason is that the consistency of the vibration motordegrades at high amplitudes. We have verified this carefully byobserving the distribution of received vibration amplitudes for largedata traces.

Impact of Phone Orientation

The LRA vibra-motor inside the Galaxy S4 generates linear vibrationalong one dimension; the teardown of the phone shows the vibra-motor'saxis aligned with the Z-axis of the phone. Thus, an accelerometer shouldmostly witness vibration along the Z-axis. The other two axes do notexhibit sufficient vibration at higher bit rates. This is verified inTable 1 where the first four data points are from when the phone is laidflat on top of the cantilever. However, once the phones are made tostand vertically or on the sides, the X-axis and Y-axis align with theaccelerometer's Z-axis, causing an increase in errors. This suggeststhat the best contact points for the phones are their XY planes, mainlydue to the orientation the vibration motor.

TABLE 1 BER with 16-ary for various orientations. Orientation Hor. AHor. B Hor. C Hor. D Ver. A Ver. B Mean BER 0.025 0.029 0.002 0.0290.197 0.178

Phone Held in Hand (No Cantilever)

We experiment with a scenario in which the accelerometer-based receiveris on the table, and the hand-held phone is made to touch the top of thereceiver. The alignment is crudely along the Z axis. This setupadversely affects the system by (1) eliminating the amplitude gain dueto the cantilever, and (2) dampens vibration due to the hand'sabsorption. FIG. 22 illustrates the results where the total vibrationrange is now smaller, pushing adjacent symbol levels to be closer toeach other, resulting in higher BER.

Security

Acoustic Signal Leakage

To characterize the maximum acoustic leakage from vibrations, we run thevibra-motor 440 at its highest intensity and record the SoV at variousdistances, using smart-phone microphones sampled at 16 KHz. This leakageis naturally far higher than a typical vibratory transmission (composedof various intensity levels), so mitigating the most severe leakage isstronger security. We also realize that the material on which thesmartphone is placed matters. We therefore repeated the same experimentby placing the phone on (a) glass plate, (b) metal plate (aluminum), (c)on the top of another smartphone, and (d) our custom wooden cantileversetup. FIGS. 23A, 23B, 23C and 23D illustrates the contour plots foreach scenario, respectively. It appears that glass causes the strongestside channel leak, and wood exhibits the least minimum of the testedmaterials. The following experiments were, therefore, performed onglass.

Acoustic Leakage Cancellation

Recall that the data receiver 500 records the SoV, produces asynchronized phase-shifted signal to cancel the SoV, and superimposes ajamming sequence to further camouflage the leakage. FIG. 24 shows theimpact of cancellation using a ratio of the power of the residual signalto the original signal, measured at different distances. As shown, thecancellation is better with increasing distance. This is because thegenerated anti-noise signal approximates the first few strong harmonicsof the sound. However, the SoV also contains some other low-energycomponents that fade with distance making the anti-noise signal moresimilar to the vibration's sounds. Hence, the cancellation is better ata distance, until around four feet, after which the residual signaldrops below the noise floor and our calculated power becomes constant.The original signal also decreases but is still above the noise floorpast 4 feet, and therefore, the ratio increases.

Acoustic Jamming

The data transmitter 400 may apply jamming to further camouflage anyacoustic residue after cancellation. To evaluate the lower bound ofjamming efficiency, we make the experiment more favorable to theattacker. We transmit only two amplitude levels (binary data bits) at 10bits per second.

We place the phone on glass, the scenario that creates loudest sound.The eavesdropper microphone is placed as close as possible to thetransmitter, without touching it. To quantify the efficacy of thejamming, we correlate the actual transmitted signal with the receivedjammed signal and plot the correlation coefficient in the Table 2, whichincludes the mean and standard deviation of the correlation coefficientfor increasing jamming to signal power ratio. A high correlationcoefficient indicates high probability of correctly decoding the messageby the adversary and the vice versa. The table shows the correlationvalues for various ratios of the jamming to signal power. Evident fromthe table, the correlation coefficient sharply decreases when Rippleincreases the jamming power.

TABLE 2 Power Ratio 0 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2 Corr. Mean 0.68 0.55 0.35 0.190.18 0.09 Corr. Std. Dev. 0.027 0.015 0.017 0.008 0.003 0.003

FIG. 25 is a flow chart of an exemplary method for modeling and usinganti-noise to cancel out sound of vibration. The data transmitter 400may execute the method, beginning with a start to transmission, e.g., abrief symbol or other signal for creating the sound of vibration (SoV)(2500). The SoV waveform may bounce back and be detected with amicrophone of the data transmitter (2504). The method may continue bymodeling and playing an anti-noise signal through a speaker of the datatransmitter, where the SoV is designed to cancel the SoV (2508). Themethod may continue to determine whether the transmission ends (2510).If yes, the method ends until the start of another transmission (2514).

If the transmission has not ended, the method may analyze the SoVwaveform (2518) and determine whether the SoV is above a threshold levelof noise (2522). If the SoV is below the threshold, the method may thenjam any residual SoV based on the analysis (2526) and continue toanalyze the SoV waveform (2518). If the SoV is above the threshold levelof noise, then the method may increase the frequency of the anti-noisesignal by δf (2530). The method may continue with filtering the SoVwaveform as discussed previously (2534), and tracking (or detecting) anenvelope of the SoV waveform (2538). The method may continue todetermine whether the SoV waveform has reached a local minima (2542). Ifit has not, then the method may continue to filter the SoV waveform(2534) and track the envelope of the SoV waveform (2538). When the localminima are reached, the method may continue to decrease the anti-noisesignal frequency by δf (2546). The method may then continue to determinewhether the SoV is above the threshold level of noise as before (2522).

FIG. 26 illustrates a computer system 2600, which may represent aspectsof the data transmitter 400, the data receiver 500 or any other deviceor system to which is referred or which is capable of executing theembodiment as disclosed herein. The computer system 2600 may include anordered listing of a set of instructions 2602 that may be executed tocause the computer system 2600 to perform any one or more of the methodsor computer-based functions disclosed herein. The computer system 2600may operate as a stand-alone device or may be connected to othercomputer systems or peripheral devices, e.g., by using a network 2610.

In a networked deployment, the computer system 2600 may operate in thecapacity of a server or as a client-user computer in a server-clientuser network environment, or as a peer computer system in a peer-to-peer(or distributed) network environment. The computer system 2600 may alsobe implemented as or incorporated into various devices, such as apersonal computer or a mobile computing device capable of executing aset of instructions 2602 that specify actions to be taken by thatmachine, including and not limited to, accessing the internet or webthrough any form of browser. Further, each of the systems described mayinclude any collection of sub-systems that individually or jointlyexecute a set, or multiple sets, of instructions to perform one or morecomputer functions.

The computer system 2600 may include a memory 2604 on a bus 2620 forcommunicating information. Code operable to cause the computer system toperform any of the acts or operations described herein may be stored inthe memory 2604. The memory 2604 may be a random-access memory,read-only memory, programmable memory, hard disk drive or any other typeof volatile or non-volatile memory or storage device.

The computer system 2600 may include a processor 2608, such as a centralprocessing unit (CPU) and/or a graphics processing unit (GPU). Theprocessor 2608 may include one or more general processors, digitalsignal processors, application specific integrated circuits, fieldprogrammable gate arrays, digital circuits, optical circuits, analogcircuits, combinations thereof, or other now known or later-developeddevices for analyzing and processing data. The processor 2608 mayimplement the set of instructions 2602 or other software program, suchas manually-programmed or computer-generated code for implementinglogical functions. The logical function or any system element describedmay, among other functions, process and/or convert an analog data sourcesuch as an analog electrical, audio, or video signal, or a combinationthereof, to a digital data source for audio-visual purposes or otherdigital processing purposes such as for compatibility for computerprocessing.

The processor 2608 may include a transform modeler 2606 or containinstructions for execution by a transform modeler 2606 provided a partfrom the processor 2608. The transform modeler 2606 may include logicfor executing the instructions to perform the transform modeling andimage reconstruction as discussed in the present disclosure.

The computer system 2600 may also include a disk (or optical) drive unit2615. The disk drive unit 2615 may include a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium 2640 in which one or more sets of instructions2602, e.g., software, can be embedded. Further, the instructions 2602may perform one or more of the operations as described herein. Theinstructions 2602 may reside completely, or at least partially, withinthe memory 2604 and/or within the processor 2608 during execution by thecomputer system 2600.

The memory 2604 and the processor 2608 also may include non-transitorycomputer-readable media as discussed above. A “computer-readablemedium,” “computer-readable storage medium,” “machine readable medium,”“propagated-signal medium,” and/or “signal-bearing medium” may includeany device that includes, stores, communicates, propagates, ortransports software for use by or in connection with an instructionexecutable system, apparatus, or device. The machine-readable medium mayselectively be, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical,electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device,or propagation medium.

Additionally, the computer system 2600 may include an input device 2625,such as a keyboard or mouse, configured for a user to interact with anyof the components of the computer system 2600. It may further include adisplay 2630, such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), a cathode ray tube(CRT), or any other display suitable for conveying information. Thedisplay 2630 may act as an interface for the user to see the functioningof the processor 2608, or specifically as an interface with the softwarestored in the memory 2604 or the drive unit 2615.

The computer system 2600 may include a communication interface 2636 thatenables communications via the communications network 2610. The network2610 may include wired networks, wireless networks, or combinationsthereof. The communication interface 2636 network may enablecommunications via any number of communication standards, such as802.11, 802.17, 802.20, WiMax, cellular telephone standards, or othercommunication standards.

Accordingly, the method and system may be realized in hardware,software, or a combination of hardware and software. The method andsystem may be realized in a centralized fashion in at least one computersystem or in a distributed fashion where different elements are spreadacross several interconnected computer systems. Any kind of computersystem or other apparatus adapted for carrying out the methods describedherein is suited. A typical combination of hardware and software may bea general-purpose computer system with a computer program that, whenbeing loaded and executed, controls the computer system such that itcarries out the methods described herein. Such a programmed computer maybe considered a special-purpose computer.

The method and system may also be embedded in a computer programproduct, which includes all the features enabling the implementation ofthe operations described herein and which, when loaded in a computersystem, is able to carry out these operations. Computer program in thepresent context means any expression, in any language, code or notation,of a set of instructions intended to cause a system having aninformation processing capability to perform a particular function,either directly or after either or both of the following: a) conversionto another language, code or notation; b) reproduction in a differentmaterial form.

The above-disclosed subject matter is to be considered illustrative, andnot restrictive, and the appended claims are intended to cover all suchmodifications, enhancements, and other embodiments, which fall withinthe true spirit and scope of the present disclosure. Thus, to themaximum extent allowed by law, the scope of the present embodiments areto be determined by the broadest permissible interpretation of thefollowing claims and their equivalents, and shall not be restricted orlimited by the foregoing detailed description. While various embodimentshave been described, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill inthe art that many more embodiments and implementations are possiblewithin the scope of the above detailed description. Accordingly, theembodiments are not to be restricted except in light of the attachedclaims and their equivalents, now presented or presented in a subsequentapplication claiming priority to this application.

What is claimed is:
 1. A data receiver comprising: a vibration sensor tosample data, at a predetermined sampling rate, from vibrations in anincoming signal received over a physical media; a microcontroller,coupled to the vibration sensor, to control the sampling rate through aninter-integrated circuit (I2C) protocol; and a memory card, coupled tothe microcontroller, to store the data with a serial peripheralinterface (SPI) protocol.
 2. The data receiver of claim 1, wherein thevibration sensor comprises an accelerometer that is in afirst-in-first-out sampling mode that queues the data and reads the datain bursts of a plurality of bits.
 3. The data receiver of claim 1,wherein the predetermined sampling rate comprises 1600 Hz and 10-bitoutput resolution.
 4. The data receiver of claim 1, wherein themicrocontroller is further to: detect a pilot frequency in a pilotcarrier signal; measure an offset in sampling rate with respect to thepilot frequency; and interpolate the incoming signal to adjust for theoffset.
 5. The data receiver of claim 1, wherein the incoming signalincludes a first carrier signal and a second carrier signal along anaxis orthogonal to that of the first carrier signal, and themicrocontroller is further to: detect the first carrier signal and thesecond carrier signal; and save the data to the memory card separatelyfor the first carrier signal and the second carrier signal,respectively.
 6. The data receiver of claim 5, wherein themicrocontroller further comprises: a first raised cosine filter tofilter symbols of the first carrier signal; a second raised cosinefilter to filter symbols of the second carrier signal; and a demodulatorto demodulate the first carrier signal separately from the secondcarrier signal using, in part, envelope detection.
 7. The data receiverof claim 5, wherein the second carrier signal includes a first spillonto the first carrier signal and the first carrier signal includes asecond spill onto the second carrier signal, and wherein themicrocontroller is further to: amplify the first carrier signal and thefirst spill, to generate an amplified first carrier signal and anamplified first spill; and add the amplified first carrier signal andthe amplified first spill to the second carrier signal and second spill,to cancel out the second carrier signal with the amplified first spill,and to leave an amplified version of the first carrier signal todemodulate free from the first spill.
 8. The data receiver of claim 7,wherein the microcontroller is further to: adaptively scale and cancelthe second carrier signal to remove an effect of the first spill; anddemodulate the second carrier signal.
 9. The data receiver of claim 5,wherein the vibration sensor comprises an inertial sensor.
 10. A methodcomprising: sampling, at a predetermined sampling rate and with avibration sensor coupled to a physical media, data from vibrations in anincoming signal received over the physical media; controlling, with amicrocontroller coupled to the vibration sensor, the sampling ratethrough an inter-integrated circuit (I2C) protocol; and storing, in amemory card coupled to the microcontroller, the data with a serialperipheral interface (SPI) protocol.
 11. The method of claim 10, furthercomprising: queuing the data using an accelerometer, of the vibrationsensor, that is in a first-in-first-out sampling mode; and reading,using the accelerometer, the data in bursts of a plurality of bits. 12.The method of claim 10, wherein the predetermined sampling ratecomprises 1600 Hz and 10-bit output resolution.
 13. The method of claim10, further comprising: detecting a pilot frequency in a pilot carriersignal; measuring an offset in sampling rate with respect to the pilotfrequency; and interpolating the incoming signal to adjust for theoffset.
 14. The method of claim 10, wherein the incoming signal includesa first carrier signal and a second carrier signal along an axisorthogonal to that of the first carrier signal, further comprising:detecting the first carrier signal and the second carrier signal; andsaving the data to the memory card separately for the first carriersignal and the second carrier signal, respectively.
 15. The method ofclaim 14, wherein the microcontroller further comprises: filtering,using a first raised cosine filter of the microcontroller, symbols ofthe first carrier signal; filtering, using a second raised cosine filterof microcontroller, symbols of the second carrier signal; anddemodulating, using a demodulator of the microcontroller, the firstcarrier signal separately from the second carrier signal using, in part,envelope detection.
 16. The method of claim 14, wherein the secondcarrier signal includes a first spill onto the first carrier signal andthe first carrier signal includes a second spill onto the second carriersignal, further comprising: amplifying the first carrier signal and thefirst spill, to generate an amplified first carrier signal and anamplified first spill; and adding the amplified first carrier signal andthe amplified first spill to the second carrier signal and second spill,to cancel out the second carrier signal with the amplified first spill,and to leave an amplified version of the first carrier signal todemodulate free from the first spill.
 17. The method of claim 16,further comprising: adaptively scaling and cancelling the second carriersignal to remove an effect of the first spill; and demodulating thesecond carrier signal.
 18. A data receiver comprising: a vibrationsensor to sample data, at a predetermined sampling rate, from vibrationsin an incoming signal received over a physical media, wherein theincoming signal includes a first carrier signal and a second carriersignal along an axis orthogonal to that of the first carrier signal; amemory card to store the data with a serial peripheral interface (SPI)protocol; and a microcontroller, coupled to the vibration sensor and tothe memory card, the microcontroller to: detect the first carrier signaland the second carrier signal; and save the data to the memory cardseparately for the first carrier signal and the second carrier signal,respectively.
 19. The data receiver of claim 18, wherein themicrocontroller is further to control the sampling rate through aninter-integrated circuit (I2C) protocol.
 20. The data receiver of claim18, wherein the microcontroller is further to: detect a pilot frequencyin a pilot carrier signal; measure an offset in sampling rate withrespect to the pilot frequency; and interpolate the incoming signal toadjust for the offset.